Overview of the Week

This week had a little bit of everything thrown in except for running. There was walking, hiking, biking, lifting, and even a little stretching… Here’s my complete rundown of workouts from this past week. Scroll down for details from each day.

 

Sunday

My ride on Sunday consisted of a mixed bag of cycling perfection. I headed out a half hour before meeting Betsy to get a few miles under my belt since I wanted to ride longer than our planned 27-30 miles. I did circles in our neighborhood practicing my cadence and stopped at her driveway right at our designated time. Together we rode to the W&OD Trail where we headed west to Clarke’s Gap. It’s a long climb, but the downhill ride back into Leesburg is fun!

 

Just as I was saying goodbye to Betsy before turning around to ride a few more miles, Bill came in from his ride with a friend. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect and he turned and together we rode a few more miles.

 

By the time we cruised into our driveway, Bill had ridden 72 miles and I’d completed 42 miles. Not only was it my longest ride of the year, but it was my fastest as well.

 

Monday

Monday started with a 5-mile walk around my neighborhood, followed by seeing clients before lifting weights and doing my PT homework. I didn’t get outside for my walk until 7:15 AM because I’m really trying to got more sleep… I need to go to bed earlier since I love getting up before the sun.

 

Tuesday

I tore into our kitchen after my Tuesday morning bike ride with Betsy declaring to my husband, “I love cycling!” We had ridden hard and I scored my fastest ride of the year, clocking in at 14.3 MPH. Not that I’m competitive with myself or anything…

Later in the morning I saw my physical therapist for a one hour-session.

 

Wednesday

A 4-mile walk at a 15:18 pace got me going early in the morning on Wednesday. I followed it up with an hour of strength training before virtually seeing clients. Later I checked off my physical therapy homework before calling it a day.

 

Thursday

I decided to keep it simple again and ride inside on my spin bike (affiliate link) on Thursday morning completing 15 miles at a steady 16.3 MPH. I saw my physical therapist Ashley mid-day where we fine tuned some of my PT exercises. We decided to move to meeting once a week going forward.

 

Friday

Bill decided to take the day off from work so I moved my only appointment, teaching my balance and stretching class virtually, up a couple of hours so we could go to Sky Meadows State Park in Delaplane, VA for a hike (I’d gotten up early and lifted and did my PT homework while Bill was out on a ride with friends). At Sky Meadows, we chose a 4-mile loop – Piedmont to Ambassador Whitehouse and back. It’s a steep climb up, but since we did the out-and-back version we were treated with the easier part last. At 82° when we started we were plenty toasty as about 50% of our hike was out in the open. Fortunately, lower humidity saved the day.

 

View from the first set of benches part of the way up the hill…

 

View from the top…

 

The highlight of my day was feeding the chickens outside the visitor’s center at the end of our hike. LOL

 

 

Saturday

After promising myself that Saturday would be a total rest day, I woke up at 6:30 and decided to join Bill, Joseph, and Julie for their ride – FOMO is real, ya’ll! As I scurried to get dressed and get my gear together I didn’t; however, take time to eat a blueberry bagel (my usual pre-ride fuel), deciding that I’d be fine for a 20-mile ride with only a few gels along the way. It was 74° and delightful as we rode to the trail to meet Joseph and Julie – it was going to be a great day!

Near the turnaround point there was another failure-to-clip-out incident were I came up behind a rider and as I started to pass him, I saw a rider coming toward me so I pulled back in behind the rider I was attempting to pass. I had to come to a near stop and couldn’t unclip quickly enough and over I went. Ugh, so embarrassing! Another rider stopped to see if I was okay and it wasn’t until I hopped on my bike to resume that I realized that my chain had come off in the fall. Julie rode ahead to get Bill and he came back and fixed my chain. Now at least I’ll know what to do in the future if my chain comes off…

Shortly after my little accident, I bonked while ascending a very long and steep hill. I’m usually able to maintain at least 12 MPH on that hill, but I slowed to 5.4 MPH and felt lucky that I didn’t have to get off and push my bike. Keep in mind that I only hit the wall once in 40 marathons, but I’ve bonked 3 times in the last 2 years while biking.

At the bottom of the hill, Bill shared a fuel bar with me and that plus chowing down on a few more Honey Stinger energy chews (affiliate link) and Clif Bloks (affiliate link) did the trick and I felt great on my return home.

As we neared the end of our ride, we swung by our bench to show it to Joseph and Julie since they’d never seen it. We ended the ride at 34 miles (longer than I’d expected) at 13.4 MPH average speed.

 

Here’s What You Might Have Missed

In case you skipped checking in on my blog this past week, here’s what you missed…

 

Questions:
  • • Are you competitive with yourself, with others?
  • • Have you gone hiking this summer?
  • • Did you run in a virtual race this weekend?

 

And that’s my rundown… Have a great week!

 

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I’m linking up with Deborah at Confessions of a Mother Runner and Kim from Running on the Fly for their Weekly Run Down. Be sure to check out not only the hosts’ posts, but those of the other great bloggers joining in on the fun!

 

Disclaimer:  This post contains affiliate links which means if you click on the blue product link and then make a purchase, I will receive a small commission for referring you. You will pay no more or less for the product; however, Amazon will show their gratitude for my referral by paying me.